Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr Gladstone.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3495, 8 March 1880, Page 2

Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr Gladstone.

In several late issues we gave extract! from the speeches both of Mr Gladstone and his opponent the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the following is an opinion from the Yorkshire Post:—

The absolutely " crashing " reply which the Chancellor of the Exchequer hm to Mr Gladstone's charges of Minis* terial extravagance must confound the Midlothian agitator and his friends. There is really no meeting the statement made by" Sir Stafford Northcote except by questioning the principle upon which his statement is based, and'that principle is. so clear and so fair that it can only be called in question by means of a subterfuge, - Mr Gladstone's charges—and of course the similar charges preferred by the smaller lights of the party, by Mr Waddy, for instance—are proved by demonstration to be wrong as to the principle upon which they are framed, and wrong also as to details. Mr Gladstone, in his criticisms on Tory financial administration, and in comparing it with that of the Liberals, considerately allows the Government to deduct from the gross' expenditure, as items which do not expose the Government to the imputation of extravagance, charges for education and local subventions, but he refuses to allow in, the same way the expenditure incurred in averting war in Europe la9t year and the cost of the war in South Africa. Yet Mr Gladstone does deduct from his own side of the account, the amount of the Alabama indemnity and the cost of the Ashantee war! Now it is "only partisans on the Liberal side who do not clearly perceive and firmly believe that a disgraceful concession was made— not by the British Commissioners, but by : the British Government of the day—to the United.States in the matter of the Alabama i claims ; and the present Government are 1 decidedly ,no more responsible for the Zulu war and its cost than Mr Gladstone and -his colleagues, in office were for the Ashantee war and iti cost. The Conservatives . were hot factous enough to say that the Ashantee. war might have been avoided with a little foresight; but it haf suited Mr Gladstone.and other Liberals, for purely partisan purposes, to getr up "a~ ~ cry" amongst the members of their party that the Zulu war is' one of those "little games" which., the Government.have resorted to for the purpose of diverting the attention of the people from domestic questions, and fhat the cost of the war, and the^ moral aspect of the war, are things to be denounced j Mr Gladstone said in Midlothian that the excess of expenditure over income under the present Government had been eight millions and a half—not an unimportant difference in the discussion of such a question, and this amount consists of items of which—so far as the present Government are responsible for them —the country heartily approves.